With a 4-1 lead headed into the bottom of the seventh inning the slumping Red Sox let up six runs en route to their third consecutive loss against Tampa and their sixth loss at the Trop (0-6).
Manny Delcarmen and Craig Hansen both allowed six runs in the seventh inning.
Goat of the Game:
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In addition to the obvious choices for Goat of the Game (Delcarmen, Hansen, Lopez, Francona), I want to make sure that the contributions of Mr. Julio Lugo are not overloooked.
Not only did Lugo ground out to end the second inning with the bases loaded, we can’t forget that he singlehandedly cost us not one, not two, but three runs with his absolutely idiotic baserunning. How? Well, after he somehow managed to avoid missing the ball and singled to center, loading the bases for Ellsbury, he turned an RBI ground out into a double play. One runner, Varitek, would have scored on that play. The double play ended the inning, but had it not been for the interference call, red-hot Dustin Pedroia would have come to bat with runners on first and third. Pedroia, as I’m sure we all recall, hit a double to lead off the next inning. Had they been given the opportunity, denied by Mr. Lugo’s sheer incompetance and idiocy, Moss and Ellsbury would likely have scored on such a double. Two more runs. I won’t even count Drew’s subsequent RBI triple.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I respectfully request that you find Mr. Lugo guilty, um, goatly.
Francona? Lugo? The bullpen gives up six runs in an inning, and you look elsewhere for the goat? Oh, come on.
It appears as if there were many goatees. Sorry
Oh, no, I certainly didn’t mean to detract in any way from the goatliness of the pen; there’s plenty of shame to go around from last night, and I just wanted to make sure some got attached to Mr. Death to All Rallys.
Lugo is the obvious answer. It does not even need to be mentioned anymore. I am eventually going to start calling Lugo “it” because he does not deserve a name.
And Francona gets hammered all the time for things like that. I think I made the point clear. I could have picked all three really.